Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @09:13AM
from the no-takebacks-either dept.

Sparrowvsrevolution writes that at this year's SXSW, Defense Distributed founder Code Wilson has announced a for-profit spinoff of his gun-printing project, from which people will be able to search for and download gun-related CAD files.
"Though the search engine will index all types of files, Wilson says he hopes the group's reputation for hosting politically incendiary content will mean users trust that it won't censor search results. 'When we say you should have access to these files, people believe we mean that,' says Wilson. 'No takedowns. No removals. We'd fight everything to the full extent of the law.' Along with the SXSW announcement, Wilson also released a provocative video where he lays out the plan for Defcad.com and criticizes gun control advocates and 'collusive' 3D printing companies like Makerbot."

Hmm.. is history about to repeat itself? I seem to remember there used to be a bunch of mp3 hosting sites that aren't here now. I'm guessing that this guy will be headed to oblivion once people start up-loading 3d scans of copywrited material - whether it is from a gun manufacturer or from Disney.

That's an interesting question. Rifles of the same basic design are/were manufactured all over the Soviet Bloc and even in Egypt and China. There were so many manufacturers, I sort of assumed the design was an open standard. I did some searching however, and apparently that's not the case:

The question is whether he meant exactly what he said, or if he failed to think it all the way through. Did he mean that any 3D printing file that anyone uploads to their site, even if the copyright on the file belongs to someone else would remain on their site until a court orders them to take it down? Which is the literal interpretation of the words he said. Or did he mean that as long as the file uploaded to their site is not owned by someone who requests they take it down they will leave it up, no matte

I took that to mean that he would fight. Not that he would necessarily be innocent or win. For all I know he may be taking an extreme stance on " [stuff] needs to be free"

However also from TFA this new site is meant as a revenue generating source - most likely for himself ("a guys gotta eat") so I am more inclined to believe that he is on more of an egotistical/screw you stance than flowers and cute ponies [wielding AK-47's].

I agree that it reads like he would fight every attempt to take anything down from the site, but it could mean a much more pragmatic approach. It could even mean that they would take an approach that would make them only barely distinguishable from the sites he was criticizing as too PC. My hope that his meaning is a somewhat combative, pragmatic approach: if they know the law is against them hosting the file, they will take it down; if they believe that the law allows them to host the file, they will fight

However also from TFA this new site is meant as a revenue generating source - most likely for himself ("a guys gotta eat") so I am more inclined to believe that he is on more of an egotistical/screw you stance than flowers and cute ponies [wielding AK-47's].

Except for logos, there's not a lot of gun IP left. A small amount of shifting, and the copyright restraints dissolve. There are more recent patents for semi-automatics, but the technology's been around for generations, so patents have mostly expired.

Death, however, has been around forever although I think Bezos will try to patent something there, one day soon.

I don't think its the lack of gun IP that will do him in, rather the opportunity by other parties (such as Disney for want of a better example) to take him down, which *co-incidently* takes down the gun stuff.

3D handheld scanners are not cheap. Yet anyways. But yes, I can imagine a torrent of 3Dz scanz (gotta use 1337 speak) hitting the net. And you guys thought the RIAA and MPAA were pissed...

Let me foretell what will happen here. And I'm dead serious! Private ownership of 3D printers will be *illegal*. A law will pass with full bipartisan support in congress. For the companies that need them, the operator will be required to be government certified and keep a roster log of all objects created and the materials

That brings up some interesting questions.
Would files for 3D printing be considered creative expression that falls under copyright, like software?
Would patents related to the object apply to the 3D printer files? Or only to the printed object?
Would the printed 3D object be covered under copyright?
You will probably get different answers for different types of final products, and also varying answers from various lawyers and judges.

Frankly, yes. He won't particularly care. North Korea, including "reservists" has the biggest standing army on the planet, three times bigger than the US military if you measure it in the number of soldiers.

Lack of access to guns isn't what's keeping the North Korean people in check, proof positive that a right to bear arms isn't a utopian solution to a dictatorial government.

If the right people have access to guns, and the wrong ones don't, an aboundance of guns can be very stabilizing to a dictatorship. You just have to guarantee that your people always get more guns and ammunition than the rebels.

Copyrighted designs aren't really much of a thing in the gun industry. As a matter of fact tons of clones and copies are made of various designs.

The Mauser bolt action is cloned by countless companies.The AR15 design is cloned by at least a few dozen different companies.The Colt 1911 design is cloned by Kimber, Rock Island, STI, SVI, Ruger, Remington, S&W, Springfield, Taurus, and about a bazillion more.The Beretta 92 design is cloned by both Taurus and TurkeyThe Walther P99 is cloned by Canik.The CZ-75 design is cloned by Tanfoglio and Canik.The Glock is cloned by TimberwolfThe Ruger 10/22 is cloned by Volquartsen

And so forth for many, many models. Gun technology in use today has been nearly perfected for close to 100 years. It truly is more about just making a quality product than the "IP" so many other industries worry about.

The problem with Free Speech is that most people have nothing important to say, so they need a gun to make you listen.

No, the problem is a demonstrator with a sign using free speech can not stop a tank as happened in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 [wikipedia.org]. Free speech didn't help the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests [wikipedia.org]. And it's not helping much in Syria today. Without firearms to back up free speech free speech means little, is practically useless, and may get demonstrators killed.

What you are doing is perfectly legal, has been for years. The plans to build all sorts of guns have been out for ages. The government really doesn't care because making a gun is perfectly legal. Calling it "hosting politically incendiary content" isn't going to make it so. It isn't going to be the Big Bad Government that is going to take you down either, it is the wife of the guy that has one of your designs blow up in his face that is going to soak up every dime you are worth. Go ask Paladin Press how it works, I am sure they will give you an ear full.

If memory serves, at least the first-gen 3d printed designs were direct adaptations from http://www.cncguns.com/ [cncguns.com] CAD files, and that site has been up with little or no controversy for some years now. I assume that there has been some adaptation since then to support the limitations of 3d printing hardware.

Much easier than trying to get him to "take down" designs would be to swamp it with useless or dangerous ones. To be any use it would have to have a review/rating system; but that could also be gamed, as one sees at Amazon or IMDB, for instance.

It's not the government that is out to get you, the freedom-loving individual. It's the other freedom-loving individuals, whose freedom and yours have come into conflict. They're the ones who will fight you, and they're the ones who will use the government as a weapon in that fight.

The government is indeed a brutal tool, but it's a double-edged sword, that will decide for itself who will be struck. That decision is based on the opinions of judges throughout history, who have made decisions on the subjective evidence of whose freedom must be suppressed to bring about the most benefit for society.

To sway those judges to your favor, promise and demonstrate a benefit to society and respect for the freedom and happiness of others. To turn those judges against you, promise to incite mayhem and subvert government authority, and give others the tools and encouragement to do so.

It's not the government that is out to get you, the freedom-loving individual. It's the other freedom-loving individuals, whose freedom and yours have come into conflict. They're the ones who will fight you, and they're the ones who will use the government as a weapon in that fight.

If you're of the persuasion that you have a right to force others (or have the government force others on your behalf) to give up their freedoms so you can have some warm, fuzzy feeling, you do not fit the description of "freedom-loving individual."

Don't think judges care about freedom and happiness, they are there to legitimize the government by insuring its regulations are consistent, even they are written by Satan himself.

Except a number of Supreme Court rulings have found what the federal government does unconstitutional. Regarding FDR's New Deal [wikipedia.org] the Supreme Court ruled the National Recovery Administration [wikipedia.org] (NRA) and the first version of the Agricultural Adjustment Act [wikipedia.org] (AAA) unconstitutional. After they did this FDR tried to add more Justices to the Supreme Court as well as force current Justices to retire when they reached 70 years old. Opponents accused him of Court Packing [wikipedia.org] for this attempt.

But it ALSO didn't stop the plans from being yanked from other 3D printing repositories.

And it ALSO did not stop a printer manufacturer from pulling a 3D printer that he had already rented, and refusing to allow him to rent.

To me it doesn't matter WHO he is fighting, what matters is that in a short time he has seen very real censorship around this topic and thus exhibited a strong need for what he is providing. So in fact, contrary

The government really doesn't care because making a gun is perfectly legal.

What makes this much more interesting is the fact that I'm from a country where making guns is definitely not legal, and the government actually cares. Furthermore, I would really expect this to be the current norm globally.

Internet really makes the world much smaller. It's going to be interesting to see how things will play out.

Unless your government allows you to have barrel assemblies and ammunition shipped in, I don't think they have a whole lot to worry about from printed guns.

It's usually hard to copyright a "thing". If you make a thing -- a new type of shelving or gun or glass or pen or chair or whatever -- you can't get a copyright on it, you can maybe get a patent on it.

So for a CAD file of a gun, the CAD file could be copyrighted... but it would be copyrighted by the author, not by the manufacturer of the gun it was a clone of (unless they were the author, of course). Now, printing out the gun might be manufacturing something covered by patents... but copying the file wouldn't be creating the gun.

3D printing will sure be interesting from a legal standpoint, it potentially brings copyright and patent law together for just about everything. I would hope that we could establish that CAD files for 3D printers are equal to recipes for the purposes of copyright: a series of steps to create something. But that's certainly not what happened for source code.

How about before you become the google of something you prove that this even exists.

Show me a working 3d printed gun. Not a lower for an AR, not a magazine, but an actually working 3d printed gun. That means you have to 3d print the parts that go bang. Otherwise you are just 3d printing gun accessories.

By law the lower for an AR IS the gun. Except for the serialed received every other component of a gun is considered parts.. Its the only part that requires a background check, and under most pending legislation will be the only actual part banned from sale to civilians (largely the same for magazines).

A lower without an upper is useless. That means all they have to do is update the law. Making barrels is still a lot harder to do, same with actions. The law is outdated and should regulate the parts that are hardest to produce.

Barrels would be a bad choice, because general-purpose parts will do it with some adaptations. A good bit of plumbing will do as a shotgun barrel. No rifling, obviously, but that's only an issue if you care about range.

Anyways, making a gun at home isn't illegal. All that matters is that one part that is necessary for the operation of the gun be serialized as the receiver so that the whole thing can't be sold/mailed. How hard the part is to reproduce isn't an issu

A lower without an upper is useless. That means all they have to do is update the law. Making barrels is still a lot harder to do, same with actions. The law is outdated and should regulate the parts that are hardest to produce.

Bullets are INCREDIBLY easy to make at home. As a matter of fact due to the recent ammo shortages I've been casting my own from scrap lead.

A GOOD reloading setup that will make ammo as good or better than factory ammo will cost you less than $300. Lee Precision actually makes loading kits that will do nearly as good a job (though with a lot more effort and frustration) for around $25.

Bullets are INCREDIBLY easy to make at home. As a matter of fact due to the recent ammo shortages I've been casting my own from scrap lead.

A GOOD reloading setup that will make ammo as good or better than factory ammo will cost you less than $300. Lee Precision actually makes loading kits that will do nearly as good a job (though with a lot more effort and frustration) for around $25.

My bad. I was thinking the entire cartridge. Suppose you no longer find gun powder/caps...

Powder is fairly easy to make. Charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter mixed and ground in the proper ratios. Granted that's traditional black powder not the smokeless powder we mostly use today, but it still goes bang just fine.

As an ignition source ("caps") there are several options. Homemaking a berdan primer would be possible as the anvil is in the case (which can be reused - most people don't reload berdan primed cases as they're a hassle but in this scenario they'd be easier). All you'd need is something

The lower receiver is the only part of the gun thats considered a gun by the law, and for good reason. It houses the magazine and the fire controls (safety, select fire--if applicable, trigger) and everything connects to it.

For a car analogy, its the frame and the engine. If you can make receivers, you're in the league with Ford and Toyota. If you make buttstocks and compensators, you're that company that sells import tuner supplies and curb feelers for gigantic low-riders.

1. There are plenty of people with access to a machine shop and the correct skills to build a gun right now. And they can build *all* the parts, including ones exposed to gasses and pressures different than ambient air. This adds nothing new.

2. If in fact home 3D printing gets to the point that you can actually manufacture a working gun (not just a "part") then it is also going to be able to manufacture replacement car parts, replacement parts for other machines, or entire machines. Then they are going to g

Ceramics--not really. Glock had this but quickly learned they were junk. High grade polymers--basicaly good quality plastic-- are now very common in firearms and have proven durability that rivals steel, with the added benefit of not rusting or adding lots of weightI'm being a bit pedantic, but I think you catch my drift.

Same way Slashdot lets stupid marginalizing assholes like you speak - they respect the First Amendment.

You, obviously, do not.

Why are we letting this small group of very insane people get so much speaking time on our media?

Uh, Equal Time Provision maybe? Gotta provide a counter-point to all those left-wing fringe lunatics who also receive a fair amount of media attention.

The whole point of printable guns is to bypass laws and safeguards meant to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the mentally unstable.

No, it's not.

Correspondingly, there is a huge intersection between the mentally ill and gun nuts because crazy people hoard weapons and are obsessed with defense and doomsday scenarios.

No, there's not.

Side note: I never have figured out how someone like this AC can, in one breath, refer to anyone who disagrees with them as "insane people," then subsequently posit some seriously off-his-nut shit not a par

Unless the supply of those all of a sudden vanishes or you want one of the better or rarer ones that will probably never happen. You would probably be able to print one up for less than a "U.S. Rifle, 7.62mm, Model of 1916" or even a really nice Finnish M39 but for a run of the mill M44 or M91/30 the material cost of a 3d printed one would be more than the cost to buy one from the store.

It will happen. The CNC machine and the 3D printer will morph together. I will be able to program my own gun parts design and share/sell it over the Internet. People will improve on my design and we will have much better guns and other products. Can you imagine 10 million people working on a design for the perfect AR15? Colt can't pay 10 million designers, just like Microsoft can't pay the millions of programmers that have written tho open source software we use every day.

What good is a gun without ammunition? (what if instead of controlling guns, the US govt would switch to ban ammunition and/or gun powder and/or primers? It'd be just as simple as to make "illegal to possess or handle explosives in any shape, form or packaging without a license"... this in the name of "the war on terror")

I do wonder then if you can use other fuels as a propellant, anything from propane onwards can be compressed and ignited to force a projectile, not unlike in an IC engine.

What is the government going to do? Ban everything from Gasoline onwards? No flammable fuels anymore?

That does not even touch on the fact that gunpowder is trivial to make yourself. If people could make it hundreds of years ago with their technology level, I'm sure a suitably driven individual could do it now in his backyard.

It's going to be a struggle for government to implement a ban that covers only a certain class of semi-auto rifles and accessories. A full ban on ammunition? They'd probably do it if they could, but I don't see it happening anytime in the near term.

What good is a gun without ammunition? (what if instead of controlling guns, the US govt would switch to ban ammunition and/or gun powder and/or primers? It'd be just as simple as to make "illegal to possess or handle explosives in any shape, form or packaging without a license"... this in the name of "the war on terror")

Banning ammo would be even harder. Although few do it some people make their own ammo [ehow.com]. Making gunpowder [dangerousl...tories.org] is and isn't easy. Ammo shells can repeatedly be reused. And it's easy to form new slugs by melting old ones.

Exactly.Whenever some fool suggests that government should ban ammunition instead of guns, I suggest that they bring a case of ammo across the border and try to convince U.S. customs that it doesn't fall under the classification of "arms".Every country in the world treats ammunition as "arms" from an import/export and regulatory standpoint.

The only reason why this is even a story is because people make a big deal out of it. "Spirit of defiance" and all that (nevermind that it's perfectly legal). Note that the guy's message is less about the utility of the thing, and more about giving the middle finger to "them".